Nihilist

Tick, Tick, Tick...

Callum Blue had bigger things to worry about than the girl on his makeshift coffee table. And yet, he couldn’t stop coming back to her. He had removed all of the glass shards from her hands and the top of her coat, but he couldn’t turn her over, lest he irritate her broken rib. Or maybe even ribs plural.

Sighing, Callum put his head in his hands and stared past Esmer’s unconscious body. Instead, his gaze was held by the rusted sheet metal that served as walls. He hadn’t been hiding in Wolfsgate for more than a month before he was found; shopping for new supplies to replenish those that raiders had stolen from him a few days ago. And even though he wasn’t the worst of criminals, the shopkeeper stared at him with a crazy-eyed expression, waving the wanted poster for all he was worth, and shouting at him as if he had killed someone. Which…He had, actually. But the poster never breathed a word about that. “Crimes against literate and normal kind,” the posters read cryptically. He could have thrown an apple core at someone and it still would fall underneath that category of misdemeanors. The law was never good enough in Callum’s eyes and never would be.

With a start, his head shot up, sensing movement. The girl’s hand was twitching, but it was the most curious thing. Her hands weren’t injured. Even the bandages that he had applied were missing. Callum checked her over for more injuries, or rather, the absence of injuries. Finally, he slowed down and got a good look at her.

She had dense, curly hair that was almost strawberry in the dim light that one bulb offered, but then faded to a charcoaled blonde. Her eyes were closed, but the lashes were tangled things, becoming practically white at the tips. Her nose was sloped and squared off at the end like a dog’s. She wasn’t wealthy, for her skin was tanned a nut brown and her skirts were shorter in the front, revealing a layer of jersey leggings underneath. In spite of what she may have looked like from her injuries earlier, her skin was unblemished and she was breathing normally, a rosy blush on her cheeks from the wind that rattled Callum’s cage.

Esmer awoke with a gasp, her light blue eyes fluttered open as her hands gripped the table below her. The pain in her chest was gone, her palms were free of glass, and her wool coat had been removed. She sense someone and turned, seeing a boy near her age sitting on a stack of crates to her left.

“You can sit up,” he said as if he didn’t use his voice very often. “It seems they want you to live. Lucky you. Your ribs are healed. Probably,” He looked and sounded tired. Callum’s face was narrow, but his features were strong. A square jaw, high cheekbones, and a softened beak-like nose peppered the pale face. His hair was a tarnished gold, as if someone scoured a goblet with steel wool. She knows him from somewhere… Somewhere…

Esmer jerked her body up from the table and scrambled away from him, eyes wide in recognition.

“You-,” her voice caught in her throat. “You’re Callum Blue!” Esmer’s eyes were frantic, as big as the simulated moon. She was almost to the end of the table now, her tiered blue-grey skirts hanging off the rough-hewn edge.

Callum sighed. “Of course,” he said to himself. “Because every respectable Wolfsgate girl knows their criminals!” Sarcasm coated every word that dropped out of his mouth.

Esmer relaxed the tiniest of bits. So he was the one who caused the car crash, she thought, convicted. “I can’t help it if you’re a wanted man,” she replied uneasily and looked about. It seemed as if they were inside one of those abandoned office buildings. Half-finished walls cluttered the space that one could say passed for a parlor room in another life if your glasses were broken, even though Esmer suspected that Callum didn’t do much entertaining.

“Where am I?” Esmer asked the obvious question, catching herself as she spoke, her eyes still searching hastily for an escape route. “I mean,” she cleared her throat. “I know I’m in Wolfsgate Airship, but where in Wolfsgate Airship am I?” She paused as if she was talking to a simpleton. “Exactly.” By now, Esmer had dropped off of the table completely, her steeplechase boots hit the floor on the opposite side of the table from Callum. Esmer’s palms spread out on the coffee table as if they were discussing military strategy and not what looked like an attempted kidnapping. Callum gave her an incredulous and well-deserved look.